AwwJacob Sartorius Confesses That He Used To Be A Total Nerd – And Still Kind Of Is

If you had to describe Jacob Sartorius in one word, what would it be? Funny? Sweet? Talented? Well, when J-14 Magazine spoke to Jacob, he let us in on one word he’d use to describe himself: a nerd!

“Something that nobody knows about me is that I am secretly the biggest nerd in the world,” he confides to us. In fact, his nerd status goes pretty far back, way before his days as a singer and social media star.

Jacob has a few things that he admits made him feel a bit like a nerd. For one, he’s never really been the type of guy to make a ton of friends. “I really didn’t have too many friends in school,” he recalls to us. “My school had like 1,400 kids, and out of 1,400 kids, I had two really close friends.”

Jacob quickly realized that having that close-knit crew was actually a good thing. Plus, he learned to make friends he had similar interests with outside of school. “It helped me become a stronger person,” he says. “A lot of my hometown friends I know from musical theater and after-school activities. I still hang out with them almost every day.”

Back in the classroom now, being a good student was important to Jacob, and though he gets homeschooled today, he still flexes his nerd muscles when he hits the books.

“Math is my favorite subject,” he shares. “Right now, I’m in algebra 2 and I’m supposed to be in 8th grade — that’s an 11th grade course. I’m learning a little bit ahead, but I like to because, like I said, I’m a nerd!”

There’s one big thing that Jacob recalls really made him feel dorky in school: his clothes. “I didn’t really understand what to wear,” he admits to J-14. “I just wore khakis, a button-up shirt and running shoes every day. It didn’t look too good.” Thanks to his less-than-stellar wardrobe, Jacob faced some mean comments from his classmates.

“Kids didn’t really like what I wore to school,” he tells us. “They didn’t say the nicest things.”

Jacob didn’t let the hate get to him — instead, he kept doing his thing the way he liked to do it.

“It didn’t change anything,” he shares. “You know, I still think I dress like a nerd.” But although he may not have grown into a fashion expert just yet, Jacob has used his nerdiness to create his own
signature style. “I still wear really awkward jeans and dirty shoes,” he laughs. “I don’t really know too much about style, but I don’t want to be normal, honestly.”

That willingness to stand out for being yourself is a great mentality to have — and Jacob knows that.

“I don’t feel like I need to impress anybody,” he says. “My #1 thing is to just remain a good human being. If I can remain humble and respectable, that’s most important!”

Interview and story by Tori Ferrigno. "Jacob Sartorius confesses: 'I'm secretly the biggest nerd in the world!'" originally appeared in the September 2017 issue of J-14.